First and foremost, I’d like to ensure you that this is not an advertisement for Microsoft Office. While I am currently using Excel 2007, many of these these tips can be used in prior versions of Excel, as well as with OpenOffice and Google Docs spreadsheets.

For the last 3 years, I’ve served as the Director of Financial Planning and Analysis for iContact, which means during that time I’ve spent more waking hours with Excel than I have spent at home with my wife, so I’ve found it to be of great value to save even fractions of a second whenever I can. Anything that keeps my hands on the keyboard and avoids disrupting my workflow, by keeping me from having to reach for my mouse, is a good thing. However, just because I’m an extreme case, it doesn’t mean that saving a few keystrokes and mouse clicks here and there won’t result in big savings of a small business owners’ most valuable resource — time.

All of that being said, as important as the shortcuts below have become to me it would be a sound investment of your time to download or bookmark a webpage featuring all of the keyboard shortcuts for your spreadsheet software of choice. Browse the list to find any tasks that you do repeatedly and memorize those shortcuts. You’ll be amazed at the increases in efficiency you’ll find.

Now to the main event….

Shortcut #1: F4, when typing a cell reference into a formula F4 places those helpful reference locking $’s around the cell reference. =A19 become =$A$19 with one keystroke. Subsequent strokes of F4 cycle the location of the $’s to lock only the row (=A$19), only the column (=$A19), then back to start (=A19).

Shortcut #2: CTRL + Z, holding CTRL and pressing Z triggers the undo function. No more having to use the mouse to click the backward pointing arrow icon in the command bar at the top of you screen. Using this shortcut will save you at least a few clicks of the mouse. Repeated strokes of this shortcut will continue to cycle backwards through the recent changes you’ve made to your spreadsheet.

Shortcut #3: CTRL + X, the Jimmy Osmond to the Donny and Marie that is Copy & Paste (CTRL + C, CTRL + V), this shortcut for Cut saves you quite a few clicks of the mouse on those occasions when you want to move your cell’s content instead of just replicating it. Cut is a great feature to use when you want to move the contents of a heavily referenced cell because all of the references to that cell will be updated to reflect the new location you chose to paste the cell. It is important to note that any references to the cell that exist in other spreadsheet files that are not open at the time of your cut and paste will not be updated which may cause #REF! errors in the other file.

Shortcut #4: CTRL + Y, although the Redo function is not the most frequently used function in a spreadsheet software its certainly needed from time to time, especially if you get a little over zealous with #2.

Shortcut #5: CTRL + S, I know you all know this one. Its not news to any of you that CTRL + S saves your work, but there is no greater time saver than preventing the loss of work you’ve already done. Making a habit of slipping in a CTRL + S every few minutes will certainly save you time in the long run.

Keep an eye out for more “Top 5” spreadsheet tips and in-depth tutorials in blog posts to come.

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